Hen house corner

pepsicola_2

Goodness, its so long since I remember people keeping hens in their gardens.

Do you get eggs every day?

Magentasue

pepsicola wrote:

Goodness, its so long since I remember people keeping hens in their gardens.

Do you get eggs every day?

We started with six hens last May (three hybrid pullets, three ex-battery) and I haven't bought eggs since. One of the ex-batteries died this winter so we only have five now. Last summer we had 5-6 eggs a day, went down to 3-4 a day through the winter, up to 4-5 a day now.

At first I gave away excess eggs, now I bake two or three cakes a week (3x3 eggs), make ice cream (8 egg yolks),meringues (8 egg whites), quiches (3 eggs), yorkshire puddings (6 eggs) bread and butter pudding (6 eggs), fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelettes ...

squeaky

Boiled eggs with soldiers and fried egg sandwiches are two of my favourite ways to eat eggs

Did you send away for a free pamphlet of Celebrity Omlette recipes that was posted some time ago? Might be in Chat Tips Gold???

Aha! www.eggrecipes.co.uk

Sarahsaver

Magentasue did you eat your dead chicken?
I had an omelette for lunch with onion and chilli in it. Yum
Its good to know you always have something to eat, now my weekly meal plan always has something eggy in it - pancakes, omelette, boiled eggs for the packed lunches, it's great.

Magentasue

Sarahsaver wrote:

Magentasue did you eat your dead chicken?

Well no, because we don't eat meat. I don't think she would have made a good dinner for anyone, she would have just been chicken stock. Also, she may have died from natural causes because ex-batteries tend not to live very long but we couldn't be sure. She was about two years old when we got her so way past her best meat wise.

I might be wrong about that, just going by what my mother told me. They kept hens during the war. The hens were pets, egg layers and some were used for chicks so they kept cockerals too. The cockerals were kept for meat but she told me they only kept them for less than a year.

Jay-Jay_4

My Mum keeps chickens, she has a cockeral and about 10 hens who are all ex battery..... they were *ahem* liberated :rolleyes:. She also had two geese until last year (the male died and the female was unhappy so she was given to a local farm) The geese were better than guard dogs and were lovely to watch as they splashed around in their paddling pools

Anyway, I used to help out with functions (weddings, christenings etc) and at the end of the night I would go round and chuck all the leftover buffet (salad, pasta, bread rolls, fruit salad, sandwiches...anything) in a black bag for my Mums hens.

The following morning I would empty a FULL bin liner of goodies into the chicken run You've never seen such happy ex-battery hens in your life

If any of you know any caterers then get in there with your bin bags

I used to give them any dregs of the cereal box, crusts of bread, past its best fruit, outer leaves of salad basically anything that was edible. I miss living next door to my Mum

sarah1

Hi, I've been to see a breeder today about some hens . He had Black Rock for sale at £15 and some brown thingys at £10 is that a fair price?. They were between 6 and 12 months old and i was wondering which are the better ones and if they would lay straight away. I was thinking about getting two should i get one of each or not?

Magentasue

sarah1 wrote:

Hi, I've been to see a breeder today about some hens . He had Black Rock for sale at £15 and some brown thingys at £10 is that a fair price?. Which are the better ones? They were between 6 and 12 months old and i was wondering which are the better ones and if they would lay straight away. I was thinking about getting two should i get one of each or not?

Only going by my limited experience here ... Black Rocks are good layers, well adapted to free ranging and lay well for years. Brown thingys ...????

We bought Black Rock pullets (about 20 weeks old, about to start laying) for £6.50 each. Our ex-batteries were 50p each.

They start laying at 5-6 months old, lay for a year, moult for a few weeks (fewer or no eggs) and then start laying again. So a younger hen would be a better bet. This is where we got our Black Rocks
there's a price list on the site to give you an idea.

I would get three unless you have absolutely decided on two. Then if anything happens to one of them, you won't have a lonely hen. Also, they like to be in a flock so three seems better. That said, two is fine if that's all you have room for or want.

HTH

Sarahsaver

mine are 'brown thingys' and were £4.50 each. Don't be ripped off!

squeaky

I've just added this thread into the Eggs and Chickens section of "Organic Foods" in our indexed collection